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Regular version of the site

Professor David Engerman: ‘Americans in particular view "Cold War culture" as repressive - and don't really have much understanding of soviet life. Yet both societies shared responsibility for the Cold War’

On October 17-19, 2013 the international conference ‘Social and Human Sciences on Both Sides of the “Iron Curtain”’ organized by the HSE Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities is being held in Moscow.

This international conference is intended to put together research findings on the history of social and human sciences in the capitalist West and the socialist East during the second half of the 20th century. The HSE news service talked to two participants about the conference about their expectations and suggestions for reading.

David Engerman, Professor of History at Brandeis University (USA) is delivering a paper ‘A Mecca for Economists and Planners’: Pilgrimages to Nehruvian India at the second plenary session. He told the news service about a new western approach to understanding soviet life during the Cold War.

David Engerman :

— It's fascinating to understand how much our predecessors knew about  their own time - we like to think of ourselves as superior, yet earlier social scientists had a keener understanding of their societies than we often think. This is especially true of our views of Soviet scholars. Westerners at the time - and many since - view Soviet scholars as bland parrots of party lines. But for as much outside pressures as they faced, soviet scholars were effective expressing complex ideas using the limited ideological language available to them in publications.

I think it's important for youth today to move past pure blame and discrediting of the Cold War. Americans in particular view "Cold War culture" as repressive - and don't really have much understanding of soviet life. Yet both societies shared responsibility for the Cold War, which emerged not just from the differences between the US and the USSR but also from some of their commonalities.’

Irina MorozovaIrina Morozova, from Humboldt University of Berlin who will speak in the Cold War historiographies section about  ‘Central Asian intertwine of nationality, religion and democracy in the ‘hall of mirrors’ of Western and Soviet historiographies (1950-1980)’ says that the thing that fascinates her most in this area is the ‘comparative history of decolonisation in Asia and the Orient and the impact of global geopolitics on the deconstruction of socialism’. She recommended the following books for anyone interested in the topic of her talk;

P. van de Veer, Imperial Encounters. Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton and Oxford 2001). 

M. Werner, B. Zimmermann, ‘Beyond Comparison: Histoire croisee and the Challenge of Reflexivity’, History and Theory 45 (2006) 30-50

D.F. Eickelman and J. Piscatori, Muslim Politics (Princeton 1996)

This is the first time Irina has taken part in an HSE conference and she hopes to develop other forms of cooperation with colleagues in the field.

Anna Chernyakhovskaya, specially for the HSE news service

Programme.pdf

See also:

‘We Cannot Understand the Modern Ideological Confrontation without the Accusations that Emerged during the Lausanne Process’

Rainer Matos Franco, from Mexico, defended his PhD thesis with honours at HSE University this June. In his dissertation, Rainer Matos Franco examines the history of anticommunism in Europe during the 1920s. The HSE News Service spoke with Rainer and his academic supervisor, Tatiana Borisova, about the significance of the Lausanne Process for the Cold War and contemporary history, the opportunities provided by HSE University for international PhD candidates, and the challenges of working with a vast database of historical sources.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Ten: 'Number, Please?'

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The final episode of the series recounts how men were unable to cope with telephone operator jobs and were replaced by tall and polite young women. However, as telephone networks expanded, the role of the intermediary became unproductive, eventually rendering the switchboard operator profession obsolete due to automation—not the first nor the last time such a thing has happened. As for Alexander Graham Bell, he used the earnings from inventing the telephone to promote science, educate people about the world around us, and pursue new inventions.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Nine: Big Connections

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The ninth episode of the series explores the development of the first long-distance, interstate, and transatlantic telephone lines, which suddenly made people thousands of kilometres away feel as close as if they were in the same room together.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Eight: The Russian Field of Experiments

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The eighth episode of the series recounts how Russia first adapted the telephone for military and logistical purposes, created a shell company headed by a nominal executive for reselling the rights to Western competitors, and intensively developed communication infrastructure in the country's two capitals, making such progress that Vladimir Lenin insisted on capturing and maintaining control of telephone exchanges at all costs.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Seven: German Efficiency

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The seventh episode in the series recounts the story of German bureaucrats, who proved to be the most astute in Europe by ensuring effective telephony first for themselves and subsequently for all major cities in Germany. However, even there, the government's dominant role over the free market slowed down the adoption of the new technology.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Six: The Telephone's Misadventures in France

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The sixth episode of the series recounts events in France when the private owner of the telephone network was compelled to sell it to the government at a knockdown price, and the impact it had on the development of communications in the country. Spoiler alert: the impact, naturally, was detrimental.

How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Five: From the US Free Market to Conservative Britain

In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The fifth episode of the series chronicles the early experiences of the telegraph and telephone in Great Britain, shedding light on the challenges they faced, and explores the adverse impact of excessive government regulation and nationalisation on the evolution of telecommunications.

Peacocks, Pepper, and Petrol: The Early History of Imports from Asia

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How the Telephone Conquered the World. Episode Four: David the Start-up Versus the Corporate Goliath

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The fourth episode of the series recounts the story of the fledgling start-up's confrontation with hordes of patent trolls and its subsequent victory in a full-blown corporate war against the largest telecommunications company of the late 19th century.

‘In Search of the Key to the Past’: Students of HSE Art and Design School in Nizhny Novgorod Develop Collection of Souvenirs

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